Hamlet Micure

 In a lingering fever many visions come to you:
I was in the little house again
With its great yard of clover
Running down to the board-fence,
Shadowed by the oak tree,
Where we children had our swing.

Yet the little house was a manor hall
Set in a lawn, and by the lawn was the sea.

I was in the room where little Paul
Strangled from diphtheria,
But yet it was not this room --
It was a sunny verandah enclosed
With mullioned windows,
And in a chair sat a man in a dark cloak,
With a face like Euripides.

He had come to visit me, or I had gone to visit him --
I could not tell.

We could hear the beat of the sea, the clover nodded
Under a summer wind, and little Paul came
With clover blossoms to the window and smiled.

Then I said: "What is 'divine despair,' Alfred?"
"Have you read 'Tears, Idle Tears'?" he asked.

"Yes, but you do not there express divine despair.
"
"My poor friend," he answered, "that was why the despair
Was divine.
"

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